Bad romance

The central claim of my essay is that certain ways of thinking and feeling associated with Romanticism, and widely disseminated in North American culture, have a broadly negative influence on the capacity of students to learn. Much has been written about the link between Romanticism and progressivism in education. For example, the historian William Reese has argued that child-centered pedagogies were popularized in America by reformers who drew heavily on thinkers such as Pestalozzi and Froebel, who were themselves deeply indebted to the Romantic tradition. 1 The philosophers Richard Peters and Paul Hirst have characterized progressive education as a romantic revolt against traditional education, one that emphasized method over content. 2 More recently, David Diehl has pointed to the ongoing influence of Romanticism on the structure of contemporary schooling, which is infused with goals such as diversity and creativity. 3 Far less attention, however, has been given to the influence of Romanticism on the ways in which students themselves approach learning.